


danse macabre

by SidewaysClarinet



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, M/M, a few spoilers for the manga/s4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28856145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SidewaysClarinet/pseuds/SidewaysClarinet
Summary: One night a year where death calls up the dead to dance with him and his violin from the chime of midnight to the first rays of dawn.Armin shares it, and his dream, and Levi tries to imagine what that would look like; one night a year, where his loved ones could be alive and free.
Relationships: Armin Arlert & Levi, Levi/Erwin Smith
Comments: 13
Kudos: 50





	danse macabre

**Author's Note:**

> what can i say,,, i just rlly wanted some cheap angst

Levi does not sleep often.

It has never been in his nature, really, not the sort of eight hour rests that most people take. It was never practical, and it still never really is. In his childhood, he had food and shelter to defend from men and women twice his size. In his adolescence, he had people to defend from those who’d kill them just to get back at him. In his young adulthood, he had the nervousness of his new life in the Survey Corps, and the tumultuousness of nights out beyond the walls, waiting for titans to close in. In his later years, it was sleep that evaded him; through nightmares, and visions, and shadows of the people he’s left behind.

Even now, it evades him. There are too many people who hover behind his eyes, too many bodies. There was his mother; then, Isabel and Farlan; then, the soldiers under his command; then, Gunther, and Petra, Oluo and Eld; then, there was Mike and Nanaba; then, Erwin; then, Hange.

Levi eventually begins to give up on the fruitlessness of sleep. When he can’t get more than a few hours in, and when it’s far too late or early to properly be awake and moving, he rests in bed and stares at the ceiling. Sometimes, he’ll count the grains and strands in the rafters, or the stars in the sky. Sometimes, he likes to look at the ripples of a lake, or the steady rise and fall of soldiers’ chests. He can’t find stability in many places, but he does find it in the breathing of others, in the immovability of the world, and the predictability of objects.

He finds it in a field, now, watching the grass ebb and flow in the soft night breeze. The others are somewhere behind him, sleeping easily knowing that he’ll wake them if their nightmares grow too loud or chaotic. He takes the unspoken responsibility with an equally unspoken degree of seriousness; if he cannot protect his own sleep, then he can protect that of others.

It helps to view it as a duty, rather than a curse. Something he’s chosen, and not something he’s unable to escape from.

The wind blows, the grass flows, and branches creak in the dark. 

He watches the dandelions and weeds flow back and forth in the breeze, scattering petals and seeds across the pasture of green. It is peaceful in the way that a countryside is peaceful just before a storm, but there is no storm coming—only a sense of unease, and a futile sort of frustration with the permanent tension of his muscles.

Levi wants to sleep. Above all, Levi just wants to sleep.

The wind blows, the grass flows, and his eyes stare blankly at the ground.

Eventually, he hears the telltale quickening breath of someone waking. There is no call of his name, nor is there a cry or sniffle, so he rests where he is, atop a toppled tree with his knees pulled up to his chest. He hears the shuffling of a blanket, then, the sound of footsteps. Levi’s eyes stay glued to the grass even as a body comes to sit silently beside him, bundled up in a blanket.

“You’ll catch a cold like this,” Armin says, quiet like the shifting of grass on the ground.

“I’ll be alright,” Levi murmurs. He leans further into his arms, but his eyes are freed from their dead stare, and he finally looks to Armin. The younger man wears an expression that Levi knows all too well; he recognizes the streaks of purple beneath Armin’s eyes, and the redness of his nose. “Rough night?”

Armin’s eyes give just the slightest twitch, and his mouth purses. It’s a few seconds of silence before he moves to imitate Levi’s position, drawing his knees up and hiding his mouth beneath his arms and the folds of his blanket.

A few breaths, and then Levi feels Armin’s hand at his back, stretching the blanket over them both. Levi wordlessly accepts it and shuffles closer to Armin so that they can share it more comfortably, and he feels the heat of Armin’s titan beneath the sleeves of his shirt, warming them both up. The breeze becomes more friendly, less biting, and he realizes then that he had been much more freezing cold than he had let on.

“You know,” Armin starts, fiddling with the blanket edge in his hands. Normally, Levi finds himself irritated with those who talk just to fill in a silence for no other reason than to dodge imaginary discomfort, but Armin speaks softly, always softly, and always with something meaningful to say. His voice has dropped a bit over the years, and now it’s a peaceful sort of thrum in Levi’s ears. “I read these books, once, when I was younger. They were about this old country, pre-Walls; they called it France.”

Levi hums quietly, a gentle acknowledgement. Thankfully, Armin doesn’t push him to respond beyond that.

He does continue, however, now looking out at the field. “They had a sort of song called the Danse Macabre, or the Dance of Death. It was based on this myth that on one of their holidays, the personification of death would come and call up all the dead to dance with him from midnight until dawn. Then, they’d all return back to their graves until the next year.”

“Sounds a little stupid,” Levi says into his arm. It does sound a little silly; what was the point of it all? Dragging up dead spirits for some morbid jog? He can’t think of it as anything other than weird, and maybe oddly funny in a way. 

“Maybe,” Armin agrees, smiling just a little bit. He always smiles easy when he gets to share information about the old world, previously illegal but now encouraged. “I think it represented something deeper to the people, though. Y’know, like, no matter who you are in life, death will always drag you up to dance with him once a year. I suppose it was equalizing, in a way.”

Levi nods, humming again. It makes a bit more sense now, but judging by the look he can see in Armin’s eyes, he guesses that there’s more to the story than just the folklore. He waits for Armin to continue, and after a few minutes, the other boy does.

“I like to imagine it’s real,” he whispers, closing his eyes. “Like, if everyone who had- who had passed got just a few hours together, just to dance and pretend everything was okay for a little while.”

Ah, there it is. Levi feels his eyes shuttering, and he looks away from Armin. 

There are a couple ways he has reacted in the past. The mention of comrades lost, when he was younger and fresh in the Scouts, would have made him angry, angry enough to shout and hiss and insult. When the deaths started piling up, he would have shut down and shut the person talking about them out, and if he were really feeling irritated, he would snap at them to stop. Now, he just feels a sort of aching numbness where grief should be, he thinks. 

“I imagine my parents are there, with my grandpa,” Armin whispers. He’s looking out at the field, and his eyes are glassy, like he’s seeing something other than just emptiness. “And I see a whole… festival, of sorts. With vendors, and food, and lights. I see people walking about, with their lovers and children. I see violins and people dancing, and my parents are there, dancing with each other. I always imagine them happy.

“And I see my old friends and family there.” Here, Armin speaks a bit slower, with a rawness to his voice and something damp in his eyes. “I see Mr. Hannes and his wife, and they’re with Mr. Grisha and Mrs. Carla, and Mikasa’s parents. I never knew what they looked like, but I try my best to imagine. I see Ymir there, sometimes. She’s waiting for Historia, of course, and Marco is with her. I don’t know that he had any family, so I imagine him and Ymir keeping each other company, even though I don’t think she ever liked him.”

Levi thinks that he can see it now, what Armin is describing. It fits with the field pretty well; he can imagine vendors and strings of light to illuminate the dark, casting the faces of passing civilians in a warm glow. He likes to imagine that they’re all happy and safe, and he fills in the holes with the faces of those he remembers from the Underground. It’s warm, and inviting, and he finds that he likes it more than he initially thought he would.

“I imagine Sasha and Bertholdt sometimes, too,” Armin adds more quietly, like he’s afraid that Levi will be mad at him for it. “She’s ecstatic to see everyone again, and he’s happier and not… crazy, I guess. Crazy is subjective, but I think you know what I mean.”

“I do,” Levi murmurs. He sketches Bertholdt in there, too, with what he remembers of the lanky titan shifter. He’s not sure who a lot of the other people Armin mentioned are, but he adds in what he thinks they may look like. A man and woman with Eren’s angry, righteous expression; a man and woman with Mikasa’s earnest black eyes; another man and woman who he imagines with Armin’s tenuous smile and blue eyes; the blonde man he remembers dying for Mikasa and Eren, in Reiner’s failed kidnapping. 

He remembers the Ymir girl, the one with dark skin and tortured eyes. He puts her next to a nameless boy, and imagines her with the put-upon expression of one who doesn’t want to interact but feels too guilty to back away. It reminds him of Isabel, and so he quietly sketches in both Isabel and Farlan, happy and healthy and dancing together like idiots. It almost makes him smile.

The blanket shifts as Armin looks up at him, and there’s the type of vulnerability in his smile that calls for Levi to take his proverbial extended hand. “Do you see them, too?”

Levi hesitates for a second; he doesn’t like lingering on the dead, much less sharing his thoughts with others. Even so, he can tell that Armin needs it, and if he can’t give these kids anything else, he can give them his paltry form of companionship.

“I do,” he says, after a moment. “I don’t… know who all of those people are, but I tried.”

Armin gives a relieved, amused little laugh. “It’s okay. I’m starting to forget their faces, myself.” After a moment, he speaks again. “Who do you see?”

It’s a long few moments before Levi is able to speak again. “...I see two of the kids I grew up with, Isabel and Farlan. They’re, um… they're dancing together, I guess. They always wanted to hear live music, so I can imagine they would be having the time of their lives.”

Armin breathes a laugh through his nose and nods, leaning his cheek on his arm. He watches Levi silently, not interrupting, giving him space.

“I see my old team, too,” he says. It hurts a bit to imagine them, but the thought of the smiles on their faces makes it easier. “Eld and Gunther are drinking. Oluo is trying his damndest to convince Petra into dancing with him, but he’s failing, of course. She might like him more if he tried harder to be himself instead of me, but he still isn’t willing to hear that. He’s an idiot.”

The next part is harder. It makes his throat ache, and his eyes burn. 

“I see Hange,” he murmurs, swallowing harshly. “They’ve finally bathed, maybe because Mike lost his temper at their stench and finally threw them into a lake. They’re dancing with Moblit, and stepping all over his toes, of course. Nanaba is laughing at them, and Mike is, too, but he can’t help looking at her the entire night. He always thought he was being so subtle, but we all saw right through him. Maybe he’s finally told her, and they’re holding hands on the table. Hange would fawn all over them the first time they saw, the dumbass.”

Armin nods, smiling fondly. “Do you think Commander Erwin would be there, too?”

Oh.

Levi’s eyes widen a bit, and he stiffens. Can he see Erwin there? Does he want to?

His mind seems to make the choice for him. Levi sees him standing off to the side, alone—no, there’s someone with him. He imagines Erwin’s face, but a little to the left, a little less like Erwin and more like a father. The older man is by his side, and there’s a sort of tenderness in the way that Erwin’s father embraces him. _It was never your fault,_ the older man murmurs, brushing aside tears that Levi knows that Erwin would never allow anyone else to see. _You were a child, it was never your fault. I love you. I’m proud of you._

He’s surprised at how happy it makes him feel, to imagine that sort of closure for Erwin, for him to be able to set aside the decades and decades of guilt that he’d weaponized into a spear and shield to push humanity forwards. He deserves rest, and peace, and in some way, it gives Levi those same things when he imagines them for Erwin, for Hange, for the veterans, for his old team, for all the soldiers that gave their lives for humanity’s cause.

“Yeah,” he says, voice raspy and hoarse. “Yeah, I think he’s there.”

“Did he ever know how to dance?” Armin asks, eyes wide and gentle. There’s a softness to his voice that would embarrass Levi, normally.

“I think Hange would damn well make him try.” Levi huffs out something like a laugh, just on the edge of tearful. “Hange would drag old Shadis into it, too. Call it a ‘Commander’s Dance’, or something like that. I bet you can imagine what you have to look forward to.”

Armin chuckles, finally looking away from Levi and towards the field again. Levi recognizes the look in his eyes, and shifts his arm over to press against Armin’s side.

“They’d be proud of you, you know,” he murmurs. “And all that you’ve done, and who you’ve become.”

Armin gives a smile like he doesn’t believe Levi, but he wants to. He leans into Levi’s touch. “They’d be proud of you, too.”

He understands it, then, why Armin thinks it’s so hard to believe. It’s hard for Levi to believe, too—that his friends could look upon him with pride knowing how often he failed them, that Erin could do the same knowing how Levi almost failed his final order, the last thing he ever asked of Levi.

But he imagines for a second that they are, and that Erwin is. He imagines that, when he eventually joins them in their hours of dancing with death itself, that Erwin will be waiting for him. Levi imagines that he’ll be waiting in his nice suit, with his good cologne and the softness to his hair of a good bath. He’ll reach his hand out for Levi to take, and his grip will be strong, and alive, and warm. He’ll wipe away the blood, because Levi knows he won’t die peacefully, and he’ll ease the pain and hurt away with soft hands.

Levi imagines here, in the safety of his mind, that Erwin will take his face in hand and finally press that kiss to his lips that they’ve been dancing around for years. He imagines that they’ll be able to stand close, close like they had never let themselves do before, and love with no regrets or inhibitions, no responsibilities or duties to pull them apart.

Maybe they’ll dance, in those moments before dawn, while everyone else rests and says their goodbyes. They’ll dance in a little corner of the field, and their height difference will be awkward, but they’ll work around it. Maybe they’ll laugh and chuckle their way through the music, just to end up pressing close and swaying together in their last moments. Erwin will hold him close, arm about Levi’s waist, and he’ll press his chin to the top of Levi’s head.

It’ll just be them—no titans, no war, no politics and no positions. Just Erwin, and Levi, and their loved ones and the peace of life beyond death.

Armin, thankfully, says nothing when his breath hitches and the burning in his eyes spills over his cheeks. He only leans up against Levi’s side, keeps him warm through the onslaught of grief and longing so strong that it steals Levi’s breath away. It’s been so long since he’s cried that he doesn’t even know what kind of a crier that he is anymore; he presses his fist to his mouth and squeezes his eyes shut, and tries to ride out the tears as best as he can.

He feels Armin’s hand at his back and wishes, for a moment, so desperately, that it was Erwin, Hange, Isabel, Farlan, Mike, Nanaba, Petra, Oluo, Eld, Gunther. It isn’t, but for a moment, he pretends that it is. He pretends that they are with him, and that this dance of death is more than just his imagination, and that the nightmare is already over.

It takes a long while for the tears to dry.

“How do you let it go?” he asks, when he’s found the strength to speak again. His throat hurts. “The dream.”

Armin looks at him, blinks, and then looks down. “I guess I can set it aside knowing that by doing so, I’m… well, I’m fighting so that others can have that. I can give others this peace here, and in the end, I guess I can find it in what waits after death. They’re all waiting for me there, when it’s my time.”

To give others this peace… it’s a flimsy sort of motivation, and Levi doesn’t believe in it, not truly. He’s not that naïve, or desperate, but he supposes that it’s better than nothing. He’ll work to give others peace, here.

And when his time comes, he knows that his peace will be waiting for him.

He’ll just have to wait for his time.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and criticisms are always appreciated! come find me on twt @/yuriotokobutgay !


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